The 2022-2023 season for Ukrainian clubs due to the large-scale war unleashed by the Russian invaders is not just unusual and difficult, but actually extreme. For the three domestic participants in the group tournament of the European Cups - Shakhtar, Dynamo and Dnipro-1 - this season is undoubtedly at least twice as difficult.
Photo: fcdynamo.comBut these are all words. Additional and quite meaningful information for thinking about the tournament path of the three UPL leaders can be provided by numbers. Complex mathematical calculations in this case are absolutely not necessary. However, it is the numbers that will strengthen the understanding of the philosophy of Igor Jovičević, Mircea Lucescu and Oleksandr Kucer and the work done by the management of Shakhtar, Dynamo and Dnipro-1.
Such an analysis was prompted by the explanations of the managers of the three clubs, who, explaining the failures in the Euroarena or in the UPL, referred to fatigue due to frequent relocations, due to playing in foreign stadiums, due to lack of time for recovery and training work.
Number of matches
People from Dynamo spoke most often about difficulties. In the current season, "Dynamo" played 27 matches, 12 of which were European Cup matches. This is five more meetings than Dnipro-1 and eight (!) more than Shakhtar. A solid gap of more than 700 game minutes certainly gave the Miners a head start, and more than 450 minutes - Dnipro-1.
However, as in every business, there are nuances. Dynamo used 5-6 more players than Dnipro and Shakhtar. And the economy of forces during more than 270 game minutes (a difference of three matches) did not help the "Miners" to win against "Dnipro-1" in the autumn race in the UPL. And one more nuance: the matches of the Champions League are in no way comparable to the matches of the Europa League, let alone the Conference League.
Fullness of the calendar
Coaches (especially of Ukrainian clubs) pay increased attention to the fact that their wards have to play in the regime - after two days for the third, or three days for the fourth. So, in the summer-autumn period of this season, "Dynamo" played three times more such matches than "Shakhtar", and "Dnipro-1" - four (!) times more than "miners"!
And what?... This absolutely did not prevent the Dnipro team from seizing and maintaining the leadership in the championship of Ukraine, and entering the playoffs of the Conference League. On the other hand, the Dynamo team, among which there were many football players with solid experience, is not excluded, because of this, they lost the tournament pace in the UPL...
Kilometers and hours
Dynamo's coaching staff, explaining the loss of points in the championship of Ukraine, mentioned most often that the team spends too much time on the road, which did not allow the "white and blue" to recover and conduct a full-fledged training process.
And indeed, during this period, "Dynamo" covered 6,830 km - in fact, 2.5 times more than "Shakhtar". There are two explanations for this: firstly, unlike the "miners", who started playing immediately from the group stage of the Champions League, the "white and blue" had to compete in the qualification, and these are three "extra" opponents, and six "extra" matches ; secondly, the Kyivans apparently did not plan the logistics very well, changing the locations of bases and holding matches in Poland.
Locations
"Shakhtar" rotated in the space between Warsaw, where it played Champions League matches (three games), Kyiv, Lviv and Uzhhorod. At the farthest point from Warsaw and the place of their base (Warsaw) — Kyiv, "miners" played only twice. But in Lviv there are 10 matches and one more in Uzhhorod (there we had to play with the leader Dnipro-1, 1:2). How convenient such routes are, it is not difficult for everyone to appreciate - you just have to look at the map.
"Dnipro-1", which chose the Slovak city of Košice for the qualification matches of the Europa League and the matches of the group stage of the Conference League, and in Ukraine successfully chose its home arena - "Avangard" in Uzhhorod, where it played eight matches plus three - in Lviv, which did not complicate logistics for Dnipro residents either.
Kucher's team played one meeting in the Ukrainian Premier League in Minai (in fact, in Uzhgorod), and only going out for two matches became extreme for Dnipro-1, as for football in wartime conditions - these were trips to Kovalivka for a game with Kolos ", and to Kryvyi Rih for a game with Kryvbas.
"Dynamo", in turn, managed to play in two Polish cities at the Euroarena - Lodz (Champions League qualification) and Krakow (Europa League). At the same time, at the Ukrainian championship match, the "white and blue" traveled five times from Poland to Kyiv, five times to Lviv, and once more to Minai and Odesa. Kyivites returned from Odessa to their hometown on November 6, and only after that they stopped clocking up mileage and spending hours on trains and buses.
It should be noted that "Dynamo" played the last six (!) matches in Kyiv, thanks to which Lucescu's team managed to improve the tournament position. Even at the end of the autumn part of the season, the competitors of the "white and blue" did not lose the opportunity to win in strategy - "Dnipro-1" postponed one match to the spring, and "Shakhtar" - two matches. Who knows what lineups these matches will be played, because spring is still a long way off...
Oleg SEMENCHENKO
